In eastern India, around 30 million farmers tend to an acre or less of land, where they can’t access most of the available renewable groundwater or reliable agriculture-grade electricity. In a country that will be the world’s most populous in a matter of years, the need is dire for increased agricultural productivity. Khethworks has developed a solar-powered irrigation system that allows these small-plot farmers to affordably cultivate year-round.

CEO Katie Taylor shares why she believes in the transformative power of irrigation, which can improve food security, counter the environmental effects of diesel and kerosene pumps, and generate sustainable employment for millions.

What inspired you to start this company?

The seed for Khethworks was sewn in our very first semester of grad school at MIT in 2013. I met Kevin and Victor in Professor Winter’s Global Engineering course. Kevin and I chose a project to design a solar pump for a one-acre drip irrigation system.

As Tata Fellows, we were able to water that seed, as the fellowship provided us the opportunity to visit east India frequently and speak directly to small plot farmers and farmer-facing NGOs across the region. There, we found that a fitting drip system was not the central problem for these small plot farmers. They simply lack affordable irrigation options for conventional irrigation.

Solar irrigation was too expensive for them. However, we knew that if we could reduce the solar panel costs by improving the efficiency of the pump, we could make a solar irrigation system more affordable.

3BL Media is the leading Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability news distribution and content marketing company. Our focus is on issues including sustainability, CSR, energy, education, philanthropy, community, reporting, and other social and environmental topics and communication.